Born in Rome, he taught French literature at the Università di Pisa and Università di Cassino. He translated, among the others, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry, Paul Verlaine, and Roland Barthes. As an editor he curated a poetry editorial series for Guanda publishing house until 1993, when he started his work at Einaudi, where he edited a trilingual series. In 1996 he was awarded of the National Prize for Translation by the President of the Italian Republic. His poetry production, started in 1980 with Ora serrata retinae (Feltrinelli) has been ongoing for almost 40 years and his poems have been collected in many books, as Poesie (1980 – 1992) e altre poesie (Einaudi, 1996) and Le cavie: poesie, 1980 – 2018 (Einaudi, 2018). He also wrote essays and novels.